Alligator Mississippiensis

Hello readers,

Rather then a drawn out expination for why I haven't written in over a year I will simply post. About this time a year ago I went out to visit my good buddy Matt. He lives in Florida now, near Daytona, but when I met him he was translating in Dusseldorf, Germany. Matt became one of those friends that only someone who has lived for a lengthy time overseas can understand. In a foreign culture, someone who you might never have found much in common with back home, becomes the person you have more in common with than anyone around strictly due to sharing a nationality. This is by no means to say that every American I have met abroad I became best freinds with, heavens-to-Betsy no. But there are some people that you click with. These are the people that when the country and all the horrible people in it really start to get to you, you can vent to them and they understand. I have had five such friends, Luke and Vince in Chile, Hermann and Michelle in Spain, and Matt in Germany.


Matt and I had several adventures in Europe, notably weekend trips to Amster-dam and Barcelona and camping on the Belgiian/Dutch border. But we had never gotten together State-side. So last year having just quit my job I flew down to Florida for a few days visit. Since this is supposed to be a food blog, let me get to the meat of things. Matt is a fantastic guy and talented in many things, but his eating habits have often dissapointed me. Some people don't like seafood, but it seems a sin to pass up the lovely crustations of Spain. He mostly sticks to the red meat and vegetable diet. Not to say he hasn't introduced me to some outstanding chow. First and foremost being the Schweinebrotchen, a crispy on the outside, tender on the inside cut of pork on a roll, absolutely essential eating upon leaving the debacherous clubs of Dusseldorf's Altstat. But I gave it a second thought upon demanding we stop at the fishmarket we drove by on the way back from the beach.


Thorough searching yeided gator tail. I had eaten gator tail before as an appetizer at the Flagstaff house, a game restaurant above Boulder, but I had never attempted to cook it. Matt seemed amiable to the idea so we bought 16oz of the beast and stopped by Walmart for some other supplies. The best food in Daytona seems to be greasy hamburgers and BBQ, so I was happy for something exotic. I cut the tail in pieces and breaded it in some Zatarain's New Orlean's fish fry. I sauteed the tail and seved it with jumbalaya and rice.



The consistancy is what you would expect given the monster's position on the evolutionary time line, somewhere between fish and chicken. The taste was scrumptious, but its hard to go wrong breaded and fried. We washed it down with some rum and ate some of Matt's mom's key lime pie for dessert. This was followed by more rum and one of Matt's fine cigars from his collection.



I look back on all this fondly, but I also look forward to Matt's arrival in two weeks. Yes the two Matts will once again be reunited, this time in my home of Colorado. Maybe this time I can get him to eat fish.